Meta Cognition / Metacognition / meta-cognition…

THINKING (ABOUT THINKING) AND WELL-BEING. IN CONTEMPORARY ELECTRONIC MUSIC AND COMPOSITION

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Abstract

This Dissertation brings together information in Cognitive Research, Neuroscience, information in areas surrounding Guidance, Therapy and Well-being, and uses ideas from Contemporary Electronic Music Composition to highlight a methodology or praxis for real-world applications. Metacognition, Insight, and an awareness of Mind form the basis of my argument for a new approach to these applications which aims not to crystallise a new understanding, but to pave the way for the continuation of this understanding outside of a progressive paradigm. This is towards a therapeutic or otherwise beneficial music.

City of London, 26^th April, 2023

Rationale

I started with a meditation practise of somewhere between three and four hours per day, interspersed by guidance from Joseph Goldstein (of the Insight Meditation Society) who recorded talks on ‘the path of insight’ (an interrogation of the Sattipathana Sutta which is the Buddha’s discourse on the liberation of mind through practise). I started the practise in earnest in September of 2021, and by March 2022, I had the single and only unexplainable experience of the period. It would be hard to describe in terms of subject and object, and it is important to note that it was not I that had the experience. The only way I can describe it was that there was a gate, or a doorway, and that it was open.

            This is clearly not a working scientific hypothesis. Where does one start looking for a gate that you cannot actually go through? It could even be described in Alan Watts’ terms, i.e. “a gateless gate”. I started with the public domain, where Watts, Sam Harris, Andrew Huberman, Lex Fridman, Peterson, Zizek, Laing, Lacan, Deleuze et al. seem to be dancing around the same problem.

Some work on metacognition seems to go some way to explaining this kind of phenomenon. Metacognition, as it functions as a meta-level check and balance, is placed ontologically to contain every other state of mind within it.

This essay came as a result of bringing together my interests in Cognitive Research, Neuroscience, Music (and Music History), Eschatology (concern with the final destiny of things), and new information in research areas which surround Well-Being. I have chosen to use select pieces of music to highlight my own understanding in the area, as well as to make links to a wider culture and how and why my conjecture is appropriate, valuable and/or prescient. I am also highlighting a particular perspective, that is my perspective and that of my peers, on Music in Digital Culture which importantly lends a kind of scientific and psychological credibility to the process of Playing, Creating, and Listening to Music (Cook, 2019). This perspective is of a renewed usefulness of music, that it might boost productivity, aid in personal function, and generally be quite a good thing to have access to.

This paper is part of a piece of Practise Research.

Literature Review

I have applied a particular methodology to the actual writing of this essay, which I think is important to highlight. R. D. Laing’s* short book Knots was foundational, in that the way it presents and engages with language at a different rate, and in different ways, to a normative, linear approach allows for the transference of ideas which are not necessarily logical or purely conceptual.

            I have, wherever possible, grounded the more conceptual ideas in a solid scientific evidence-based landscape of ideas, tying my work to the field. I will cite a range of sources in the scientific literature, which I’ve aimed to keep relevant, contemporary, and accurate.

            To tie the field to my work, I will note where I have applied theory to my own composition, where I am drawing theory out of the existing works and combining it with original material.

The Musical Landscape here consisted of

-       Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien N.1, an early field recording / musique concrete work

-       Ravel’s Menuet sur le nom de Haydn, John Cage’s In a Landscape, which I learned to play on the piano as I wrote the essay

-       Phil Elverum’s The Microphones and Mount Eerie

-       Burial, Four Tet, and Thom Yorke’s Her Revolution / His Rope (as well as Burial’s solo work)

-       Eno’s generative / early ambient work

-       My own discography.

I also read Daniel Levitin’s book This is your Brain on Music, which helped to ground some of the more abstract ideas into a material understanding, I also read some of Finnegan’s Wake, Nicholas Cook’s Analysing Musical Multimedia, and Mark Fisher’s The Weird and The Eerie. These helped to engage with a way of talking about deeply unusual things which are still, somehow, mundane.

            Brian Eno’s Biography Visual Music is a book with a lot of pictures, but more importantly describes in detail Eno’s life through college and his entire career and contains some extremely relevant material. Eno, for example, constructed a ‘Fake Personality’ during school, which was counter to his own (and would do the ‘opposite of what he would do’). This seemed relevant, touching themes of authenticity and illusion, and it seemed to make the Real clearer, somehow. In the vein of authenticity and illusion, I read the Satthipathana Suta, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, parts of the Bible, parts of Terence (and Dennis) Mckenna’s texts The Archaic Revival, Food of the Gods and The Invisible Landscape. In the Western Canon, I also engaged with Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation, Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, Deleuze and Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and I was also briefly addicted to watching Adam Curtis’ documentaries.

“It has been argued from a variety of theoretical perspectives that intersubjectivity, or the sharing of experiences, constitutes the developmental basis for the awareness of mind” (Brinck, 2013)

*Though Laing has been deemed a controversial figure, his critiques of Psychiatry are to me relevant and human, and they importantly recognise the humanity and agency of the people considered to be patients.

1.   Meta-cognition / Metacognition / Meta Cognition

It would make sense to start with the definition of Metacognition, but this is easier said than done, as “it is not always clear what is meant by metacognition.” (Livingston, 2003). At the most basic level, Metacognition is defined as “an awareness of one’s thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them” (J. Metcalfe, 1994). This is, however, a subtly misleading definition, as suggested by Fleming, although it is technically true to say metacognition is an awareness of thinking, the name meta-cognition enables it to contain [all] other types of cognition. “It is crucial to separate the empirical definition of metacognition from its epistemological status as a meta-level representation of an object-level cognition” (Stephen M. Fleming, 2012).

This, beyond its paradoxicality, bears a certain relation to, for example, the ‘pointing out’ instruction in Dzogchen Buddhism (which can be regarded as the ‘final boss’ of Buddhism, Dzogchen meaning ‘great or complete end’). If you are interested in learning more about Dzogchen Buddhism, the Insight Meditation Society is a good place to start (Jack Kornfield, 2018). The pointing out instruction is in this context:

“the nature of our mind is completely enlightened right from the beginning, and it is known as ordinary mind. In this context, 'ordinary' does not refer to mundane consciousness—a mind that is totally caught up in this world […]. Ordinary mind refers to Mind that is not fabricated in any way. It is the natural or fundamental state of our mind, totally free from all conceptual elaborations. It is the best part of Mind. […]. It does not matter how our mind is manifesting. Whether our thoughts and emotions are positive, negative, or neutral—that mind, in its essence, is totally free from all dualistic fixations” (Rinpoche, 2009)

And can be demonstrated in ‘Bodhidarma’s Mind-Pacifying of Dazu Huike’:

‘my mind is distressed.’

‘I have told you to look for your mind. Bring me your mind, so that I can calm it.’

‘I have looked for my mind, but I cannot find it.’

‘there. I have pacified it.’

Beyond the level at which this is a nonsensical Zen witticism, this kind of recursive, paradoxical request/command is the basis of a qualitative understanding of what metacognition actually is, and what it can do (Fleming, 2021).

Maintaining an internal, self-referential check and balance system is key to processes across the biological world. The concept of Homeostasis rests upon a dynamic equilibrium being maintained, for example feedback from the nervous system (and Baroreceptors in the circulatory system) working collaboratively to maintain a body temperature around 37 degrees Celsius. However, when we apply this same kind of logic to the Mind, our intuitions seem to break down. “Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world” (Harris, Waking Up, 2014). This is where I believe our creativity might exist. Because you interact with Mind with no interface, there doesn’t seem to be a distance between stimuli and response. But this is not the case. You are the distance between stimuli and response. This is a fundamental realisation of metacognitive agency.

‘‘volition is nothing but attention’’ (James, 1983)

Sound – Music / Dualism

“Music,” wrote the late neurologist Oliver Sacks, “has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.” (Lu, 2022)

One way to understand the dualistic paradigm might be through listening to Luc Ferrari’s piece called Presque Rien N.1. The English translation of this title is ‘next to nothing’. This is a piece made from field recordings in an early morning (taken all from Ferrari’s window in Croatia; all from the same point of view). The piece treads the border between pure Field Recording and Musique Concrete, as there are long naturalistic soundscapes but these are set out in a score (ONA, 2018). This is a sonic postcard (according to Ferrari), but there is an added layer: though this piece can be listened to as a purely representational sonic environment, it can also be listened to in quite an abstract way (Nye Parry, personal conversation, 2022). Meaning that there are compositional gestures, which seem to represent or embed something on the level of understanding, within the sonic environment. In which case, Next to Nothing is a piece or an anti-piece; it contains its own ontological structure recursively: the piece can only be listened to (or completely ignored).

HRQOL

Health-Related Quality of Life is defined by the Centres for Disease Control as “an individual’s or group’s perceived physical and mental health over time” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). HRQOL is closely related to and frequently used interchangeably with well-being, as “Music interventions are linked to meaningful improvements in wellbeing, whether by singing, playing, or listening to music” (J Matt McCrary, 2022).

What does this mean in metacognitive terms?

Meta-cognition’s application to well-being is in its transformative capacity; that some problems or distressing states of mind can be resolved by entering a meta-cognitive state. This becomes clearer when we identify people with impaired or low levels of cognitive self-consciousness, and how their experience is affected (Carmen Valiente, 2012). Primarily, the result of reducing or ignoring the process of insight is linked to negative outcomes in decision-making, organisational skills, comprehension and understanding, and basic psychological freedoms, such as the freedom to think differently.

What is a state of mind that contains all other states of mind?

In some ways, metacognition is no state of mind at all. It is not characterised by a particular mode of thinking, or a particular situation or set of stimuli. As it is not necessarily readily apparent, and as much of the initial research was based in developmental psychology, its scope was limited. For example, I recently had a conversation with an A-Level English teacher, describing an inset day of training on Metacognition. She described the teaching techniques as being stuck in their ways, outdated, and there needing to be a radical shift in the way it is talked about, researched and/or interacted with (anon. personal conversation, 2023).

“Metacognition is simultaneously a topic of interest in its own right and a bridge between areas”  (J. Metcalfe, 1994).

Metacognition might be better described in terms of what it is not. A  non-categorical definition allows it to relate more accurately to the conceptual world.

2.   Uses of Meta-cognition in therapy and well-being

Meta-cognition’s application in therapy and well-being is expansive. Metacognitive Therapy, attributed to Adrian Wells (Wells, 2011) has been used to justify broadening approaches to psychotherapy (Roger Mulder, 2017), as well as being bonded to creativity (Horan, 2009). I want to highlight the link between contemplation, well-being, and creativity.

Creativity and contemplation

THE MICROPHONES

Phil Elverum, particularly through his monikers Mount Eerie and The Microphones  explores related themes of life, death, the universe and everything, etc., etc. Elverum describes his work as “one progression”, stating that his “goal is to make a varying body of work with a cohesive theme running through it” (First Order Historians, n.d.). Elverum’s writing is often described as ‘Lynchian’ (Power, 2020). Notable features on both projects are his attention to acoustics, microphone placement, split recordings (by stereo, L/R), Elverum’s signature vocal production; playing with gain, distortion/hard clipping, and effective use of silent (negative, empty, unwritten) space. Room Tones, the sound in the studio when nobody is playing, also feature. Particularly on a track like I say ”No” from 2008’s album Dawn, where the final lyrics:

“Some people say; “The sky! The sky, the sky…

Have you noticed it?”

I close my eyes,

I say nothing now.

There’s a ringing in my ears that’s faint and high,

and when I listen close to it

It says “ “

are followed by 34 seconds of silence, Phil Elverum’s compositional voice becomes clearer;

it is one of extreme polarities contained within dynamic, organic-sounding structures. Particularly, the polarity I am investigating here is between the elevated The Microphones - The Moon, from The Glow pt.2, and calm Mount Eerie - Moon Sequel, from Dawn. Both tracks are explicitly of the same (or sequential) material, having a similar motivic structure. However, Elverum investigated Fidelity here, playing the ostinato on different guitars, using different (but comparable) lyrics, telling, in effect, the same story from two perspectives. Perhaps in the strain of the chapter ‘On vanishing land’ I think there is something Eerie about this (Fisher, 2016).

“The idea that permanence and impermanence are one and the same is perhaps challenging to get your head around. Yet the message is couched in the most sublime music, which builds from an ambient lull to a catharsis forged from guitars and the seismic momentum of Elverum’s singing.” (Power, 2020)

            Phil Elverum’s track The Glow Pt. 2, from his project The Microphones, seems to exemplify this; a kind of structure-no-structure within a kind of eschatology. It has been recorded using low-fidelity techniques, meaning there is destructive alteration of the acoustic source material in a way that implies that Elverum is both aware of his own relationship to authenticity (fidelity to source material being representational of authenticity to truth) and willing to communicate in this impossible space, which is postmodern, in that The truth, as a definitive statement, doesn’t appear to actually exist. This is why I call this a kind of structure-no-structure; navigating conceptually is not the reality of existing within and navigating. But this is why I use the term eschatology; it is worthwhile to consider the total or complete trajectory of the entire system. The use of damaged textural layers blur the boundary between the record and the listening environment; and in short, exoterically imply there is an incomplete interface between the listener and the music.

Elverum outlines the ‘complex, ill-defined problem’ in the lyrics (Horan, 2009):

“I could not get through September without a battle;

I faced ‘death’; I went in with my arms swinging..

But I heard my own breath.

I had to face that I’m still living.”

The following verse is plain; it is direct and has a simplistic melody.

“My chest still draws breath, I hold it;

I’m buoyant… boy… there’s no end.”

Following this is where material creativity is applied, relevant, extremely prescient, extremely nuanced and necessary, effective, efficient… pick any word that makes sense of the reality of it. Elverum, with “unfettered intention integrates novel associations/experiences into a solution within appropriate hemispheres.” (Horan, 2009)

When we encounter an intractable problem, the only tractable solution to the problem is as the way we respond to it. The definition of Weird is outlined by Mark Fisher in ‘The Weird and The Eerie’.  As a fourteenth century word, ‘weird’ actually referred to something with “the power to control fate” (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2022). However, as Fisher points out in the chapter on the disappearing door of H.G. Wells’ the door in the wall, The Weird comes as something that fundamentally exists, but cannot be pinned down as such (Fisher, 2016). The problem Elverum deals with in The Moon is an intractable one. With a somewhat manic, energetic instrumental to contrast the nearly catatonic vocal delivery, Elverum is talking about (historically) Pop Music’s fundamental problem: heartbreak.

“And you were trying to get me then,

And I was happy to let you in.

I went back and wished I hadn’t, I went back and felt regret.”

The moon as the bringer of sleepless nights, spooky shadows, of werewolves, nightmares, and hard truths… or as inviting a confrontation with mortality…

“I went back and stared it down…

but the moon just stared back at me,

And in its light I saw my two feet on the ground.”

is a development of the abstracted mortality claims in the previous track. Elverum is outlining here a sense of timelessness, or aliveness, that might otherwise be overlooked. Proceeding from this, the room tone is revealed from the extremely busy mix (Nye Parry referred to it as “the weirdest mix I have ever heard” when I played it to him, 2023). This is a kind of polarity: we see Elverum standing with his two feet on the ground, from an extremely manic state, having a calm kind of moment with the moon. The polarity is between a kind of elevated or moving state, and a catatonically still state. Elverum develops this on Moon Sequel, which I will analyse in the next section.

3.   Musical States of Mind

In a distinctly Cartesian, dualistic tradition, cognitive scientists tend to refer to the Mind as the thoughts, hopes, desires, emotions, essentially qualitative, experiential characteristics, or the experience of experience. The Brain, on the other hand, is represented like a “computer running the program of Mind”; the coal furnace which keeps the Mind Train in motion (Levitin, 2019)

            The evidence base for this is that, firstly, if you damage an area of the brain, you can affect the qualitative characteristics of the experience (but the experiential aspect itself persists). Secondly, with technologies like MRI, we can map the brain, placing particular functions and pathways within certain networks, which are then responsible for large-scale operations such as Vision, which Sam Harris hacks in the optical illusion section in Waking Up (Harris, Waking Up, 2014).

“Musical activity involves nearly every region of the brain that we know about, and nearly every neural subsystem” (Levitin, 2019).

To have developed a distinct technology that is somehow involved with nearly every region and neural subsystem is astounding. But it presents a terrifyingly complex mess to understand.

For one, there is a strong link with the listening process and hemispheric coherency (and synchronisation), which was outlined in the CIA’s Gateway Report (CIA, 1983). There is also research which suggest learning and playing music aids and affects the development of the Corpus Callosum (Miller, 2008), (Christopher J. Steele, 2013), (Vollmann H, 2014). This suggests that music, as a holistic process, is interdependent with more general brain functionality. Music both grows and is grown by the whole Psycho-Somatic environment. What this means is that the Mind is, in quite a formal sense, a musical instrument.

This concept was famously demonstrated by the influential early electronic composer La Monte Young, in his minimalist piece named Dream House. Consisting of an installation of speakers and lights within a house (created in collaboration with Marian Zazeela), which plays continuous sine wave drones with lighting to match, later iterations of Dream House were named Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest X. The piece has been described as a “landmark conceptual work”, "a living expression of Young’s ideas about the importance of experiencing certain kinds of mathematically composed sounds over long periods," and "a potentially life-changing experience" in publications from The Fader to The New York Times.

The basic concept is as follows: “As complex as sounds are, they can be decomposed into a series of sine waves” (Nicolas Bernier, 2023). Sine waves are reportedly used for their ‘Purity’, ‘Atomicity’, ‘Simplicity’. “The subcategory Therapeutic – having the property of affecting body and mind, either positively or negatively, again – emerged quite autonomously from the analysis” (Nicolas Bernier, 2023). Sine waves are also linked to their ‘cyclicity’, which is outside of historicity, in its own cyclic subcategory, making it useful from a psychological reinforcement perspective. It is also noted that “the physics of sound seems to complete Western harmonic theory”, in reference to concepts like the Harmonic Series, Auralising Architecture with room tones and resonant frequencies, and being used in combination with other forms like visuals, digital arts, sculpture, and language.

I would theorise that the problem-solving process, or the process of ‘creative contemplation’ outlined by Roy Horan in the diagram below, is the same process attempted in Dream House, and the other musical sources I have presented in this essay. Horan illustrates the process: 

(Horan, 2009)

We are presented with a complex, ill-defined problem. This is a notable psychological event. We attempt to navigate this problem conceptually to save time and decrease the risk of creating more problems outside of the conceptual world. Then, the process of creative contemplation (which might be realised as action outside of the abstract world) can begin, during which we move between different phases of brain activity, from Delta to Gamma brain waves. This is where hemispheric synchronisation (coherence and lateralisation) allow the transformational or transcendental process to take place. The end product of this process is labelled insight, which I believe is synonymous with a metacognitive end state. As I’ve previously mentioned The Microphones, I will now construct my own diagram using Horan’s as a reference. This is for the song Moon Sequel. I will diverge or expand from or from Horan’s ontological structure in some formative ways.

Simple Repetitive Motif* (SRM1)

Melancholic/Minor : Problem-Bound, Strong Memory association

(SRM1+2)

Attempts at using heuristics fail : “you’re gone, you’re gone…”

*it is assumed that Sanyma, the intention to use the process as a transformative vehicle is already basic, compositionally

TRANSCENDENCE or ACCEPTANCE

Theta > Low Alpha ‘detached witness’

Gamma: “but am I lying?” > ‘heightened awareness’

INTEGRATION (SRM2)

Chord

Chord

Descending Motif

 Descending Motif

Rhythm

     Alternate Rhythm

A series of linguistic instructions in a coherent, or laterally synchronous cyclical composition:

“what’s left?”

“who cares?”

“what gives?”

Insight

“and there’s nobody around,

And there my answer was found.”

I’d like to bring in my first original composition here, as a piece of practice research. This is tomorrows and tomorrows, from my 5^th album Reflections, which is track six of nine. The track contains a section from Duncan Trussell’s Family Hour podcast, in which he talks about his experience of depression. The track also contains my response to this, in lyrics which I wrote in the form of a Koan or an instruction. This part comes roughly two thirds of the way through.

“Oh this mind I’m looking through… oh,

The space between me and you,

Look; how far we’ve been

Through this state

I/we’ve never been.”

Using the diphthong inside the delivery of the sung vowel “I” to link with the “E” in “we”, and using the specific rhythmic feel of the track, I attempted to write a transcendental response to this state of mind, that could be learned, reused, and returned to.

Guidance: something in common.

It is not controversial to say that music is linked to one’s state of mind. The link, though, appears to seem rationally tenuous, distant, deeply convoluted, or obscured: the signal to response pathway is not usually direct or obvious to the listener.

HER REVOLUTION / HIS ROPE

by Burial, Four Tet, and Thom Yorke, was released on streaming services on December the 11^th, 2020. Yes, that was deep in the winter of the Coronavirus Lockdown Situation, yes, my personal life had nearly completely disintegrated and I was living alone in an empty university halls.  

“Whenever we turn on the radio, press ‘play’ on a stereo set, or switch on our mobile music device, we bring into being a schizophonically simulated reality that consists of sound alone” (Elferen, 2019).

“she waits, she waits.. wily as a fox,

she is watching us now. She’ll sell us out.”

It is unclear when this track was produced, and there is speculation that it was written over a decade ago but deemed “too dark” to release at the time (8000 Records, 2021). It almost sounds as if it is being transmitted from way back then, the samples are somewhat mangled and there is a lot of hiss noise, vinyl noise, etc. As the frontman, Yorke guides us through the track, aware of “a sense of anxiety … expressed through a dystopian environment” (France-Presse, 2019), which he expressed in the pre-release interview describing Anima. I want to posit that this same pervasive sense of dystopian anxiety (Curtis, 2022) is reflected in this EP. As composers and listeners, we are scarcely granted the opportunity to change the systems we reflect. I think this EP was intended as a spanner in the works, which would enable people to dream, or to stop dreaming, in the midst of an extremely difficult situation.

The Fidelity, that is, the faithfulness to the recording source (whether by technological deterioration as in William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops or by positive alteration by aggressive amplification as in Death Grips On G.P.) is openly brought into question on this record. It is clearly not just an aesthetic consideration, as the meaningful lyrics are obscured at key points.

The second track, Her Rope, contains a repetitive loop which grounds the system in familiarity and rhythm, and gaps in the instrumentation allow the possibility for a break or opening from this system.

A long evaluation and a tangent about …

Any case for metacognition being applied to wellbeing, or music being a facilitator of this process, must be weighed against the potential harms of the process. The most basic issue and risk here is the problem that, as metacognition is a kind of insight, the insight might be worrying, provoke anxiety, provoke Nihilism, depression, might prompt the individual to make connections where there are none, and therefore is a significant risk associated (particularly with those suffering psychotic disorders) with other vulnerable Minds (Norman, 2020).

            One reason causing concern is that the insight might give the individual a perspective on their life with which they are deeply uncomfortable. This is why meditative traditions have given much weight to psychological traits like Acceptance (for example by ‘Noting’ in Vipassana Mindfulness Meditation), Acting-Unacting to create time between stimulus and response (Taoism and Daoist breathwork (Gong, 2021)), and often to encase a person in a specific Caste or Social Class which gives a structure and rationale to the problems of Work, Money, Quality of Life, etc.

The basic problem of unsatisfactory-ness, or uncomfortable insight, persists.

            Another, more urgent cause for concern, is that music isn’t always particularly nice to listen to. Phil Elverum’s The Glow, Pt.2 contains a track called (Something) – 1 which is a waking nightmare. The first response to listening or participating in this kind of music is a patience or ability to listen dispassionately. However, most people would readily admit that they would more willingly listen to music that they like or enjoy than to music that they actively hate or do not enjoy.

The reciprocity and empathy of the human musical system may serve to counteract the risks posed to all involved. However great the risk, the clinical results bear the realities of our situation.  

Clinical Reality

Real world activities like sports are beneficial to people. “Exercise has the potential to improve mood, functioning, and the course of bipolar disorder, mediated by BDNF increases in neurogenesis and decreases in allostatic load.” (Sylvia, 2010). Music has a comparable effect: “Music-exposed rodents showed statistically significant increases in neurochemistry, such as higher BDNF levels, as well as an enhanced propensity for neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Furthermore, music exposure was linked with statistically significantly improved spatial and auditory learning, reduced anxiety-related behaviour, and increased immune responses.” (Kühlmann AYR, 2018),  “Further research is necessary to explore and optimize the effect of music interventions, and to evaluate its effects in humans.” This means there’s a potential for a broad expansion into music linked to well-being research outcomes.

There is also the possibility for links within a more specific ‘therapy’ such as music therapy being applied to the physical neurochemistry of any individual’s wellbeing. Such results already exist. “Therefore, it could be hypothesized that music therapy can help to: (a) reanimate activity in the hippocampus, (b) prevent death of hippocampal neurons, and (c) lift the blockage of hippocampal neurogenesis.” (Koelsch, 2010)

But music is everywhere.

“It’s easy to have one part of the brain fall away, and you have some deficit and you say, ‘Oh, that part of the brain does that, right?’ It’s much less satisfying to say ‘Okay, music is everywhere’—but that’s what we’re seeing” (Kasrawi, 2012). It’s part of not just the neurochemistry of our lives, but the actual qualia of Being Alive, and as such, it is built into the symbolic and representational network that We are in the midst of. To be clear, it seems that basically being exposed to music improves (at the very least) Neuroplasticity and Immunity, helping us to Think Differently (and to deal with problems).

Learning how to talk (again)

In my research presentation, I played a short piece that I hoped would capture the essentials or fundamentals of a way of thinking, which is a Frontier (the original title of this essay was ‘Frontier Psychiatrists’), in that it is a new way of thinking, and in that it pertains to an objective, formalised approach to the description and expression of Mind, which is a Frontier in Psychiatry (as psychiatrists and academics seem to talk about Mind as the mind, as if it itself exists as its definition) (Thomas Shandel, 1989). I also made a reference to The Avalanches’ song Frontier Psychiatrist. However, it did not translate. I have, therefore, made alterations to the composition (by using audio engineering techniques learned from the music explored in this dissertation). The two pieces are available here , or also publicly here and must be played through a stereo system, in an uncompressed file format (such as a .wav, available at the first link).

            The initial recording is in mono and is from a single mic in a room. I recorded the room tone, and then sang and played an unamplified guitar into the room. The structure of the song itself was informed by the free-form structures in Phil Elverum’s music. I aimed to present a problem, to investigate the problem, to synthesise or achieve some sort of a transcendental or transformative process, and then to present the conditions of the initial problem itself, liberated, or otherwise.

            To achieve this more clearly in the second version, I used a technique which delays either the left or right channel by a certain number of samples (samples being the smallest temporal unit of measurement within a digital musical environment). This, due to something called the Haas Effect (due to the speed of sound and the distance between the ears), makes the mono signal appear stereo, and can make elements appear to either move to the left or right. I use this in the initial part of the song, to move the track left, as this is the direction of the past, the left-hand-path, or the archaic, forgotten, or fossilised. I also used it in the latter part of the song to move the track to the right, as in the right-hand-path, the direction of the future, of progress, of development and transformation.

            The Haas Effect breaks somewhere around 30-40ms, beyond the head’s width at the speed of sound. At this stage of delay, the two sounds begin to seem separate or distinct, and as one moves relative to the other, the Doppler Effect is apparent. This, because of the simulated compression and rarefaction of the waves that make up the sound, causes the sound to change in perceived pitch. I highlighted this with a Tape Delay, which actually alters the pitch of the sound (not just the perceived pitch) as the speed of the Tape is increased. Repeating the sound with a tape delay also has the affect of amplifying the sound through time. The aim with this combination of effects was to create a singular, mono-spatial system. As the song exists within this simulated acoustic system, and as it translates in the acoustic environment of the listener, the possibility for an apparent break in the laws of physics becomes…

The Logic of the system itself can be broken, even in an all-encompassing system.

states and no-states

At this point, the boundaries between a linguistic diagnosis and an actual problem become harder to distinguish. Henry Shukman utilises a Koan that asks the listener “what is there now, when there is no problem to solve?”. I would posit that, despite this being an interesting philosophical quandary, it might be of positively no use therapeutically. Where is the boundary between a functioning intervention and useless noise?

Conclusions

Music and the brain

The CIA’s gateway process report, combined with my personal experience and reports from Hemi-Sync and the Monroe Institute, and Sine Wave research from Cambridge lead me to conclude that the process of listening to music or tones can generate affect (CIA, 1983) (Nicolas Bernier, 2023). Specifically in a meditative capacity, one can navigate a smooth transition between states of mind, for example from problem solving in the Gamma phase, slowing down to normal waking consciousness somewhere between alpha and beta waves. This transition, when managed correctly, goes from being a cognitive Black Box to an open system which can be modified or controlled by the user (Horan, 2009). I mean that the controlled transition between states of mind is not a Black Box, it can be intentionally manipulated by the user. As a total system, at optimum capacity with the current hardware, this works by synchronising the firing of the neural networks in the left and right hemispheres, and also by modulating the rate of this firing from 0hz (braindead) to somewhere above 80hz (Gamma brain waves) (Hiew, 1995).

“If these experiments are carried through, it is to be hoped that we will truly find a gateway to Gateway, and to the realm of practical application for the whole system of techniques which comprise it” (CIA, 1983)

States of Mind

My own research compositions combined with study of various guidance texts (for example on Insight Meditation, Creative Contemplation, and others) lead me to conclude that it is possible to guide, using music, a transition from one state of mind to another (Horan, 2009). Furthermore, based on research into the functions of metacognition, to guide the listener into a transitional state of mind as a metacognitive end-state (Noushad P, 2008). This is represented by a creative process, so that when a problem presents itself, it invites with it the inherent possibility for its own solution (Miller, 2008) (Carmen Valiente, 2012). There is room to both navigate and invent new states of mind (McKenna, 1994) (Jack Kornfield, 2018).

“You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.” – Terence McKenna

Well-being

Well-being, in this context, as a methodological approach to Mind, which is repeatable, which is reliable, is conclusively reliant on the ability to accept (or view), and then to transcend or transform conditions of the Mind, most specifically the conditions that generate intractable problems in the first place.

When an intractable problem arises, such as the problem of heartbreak, we are confronted with a problem which has no inbuilt solution, as, implied in the conditions of heartbreak, it is something we are unable to process (Whyte, 2014). It is a break in the flow of the system. This kind of problem requires a different kind of problem-solving, which is a modulation of the initial conditions which generated the problem in the first place. This is a non-linear solution, as it would require the user to travel back and to edit their own source code, so to speak. In a single, linear temporal system such as the one represented by Newtonian physics, this would be impossible, but we no longer live in that world: (O'Hare, 2023).

            A counterexample to heartbreak, and one that demonstrates the same reality, is the process of waking up. If one considers life itself to be The Problem, then waking up is an intractable problem that cannot be solved. If one considers life to be a no-problem, the initial conditions are transformed and the problem ceases to exist. In this way, the logic of the Waking Up system is comprehensible, however bizarre.

“the metacognitive learner is thought to be characterized by ability to recognize, evaluate and, where needed, reconstruct existing ideas.” (Noushad P, 2008)

Specific utility case

Endelsound and reflection

A relevant example of a way this process is being used in a contemporary real-world space is the use of generative audio-visual apps (a popular example being Endelsound in the context of promoting well-being, boosting productivity and focus, especially for people with ADHD). Another example of this is Brian Eno’s reflection. Eno makes the case for generative music, that it “sometimes creates things that are beyond my taste” (BBC, 2017).

            A person with ADHD will, for example, open Endelsound, and listen to the soundscape in order to boost productivity over a sustained period (Hayes, 2020). This seems extraordinarily useful. However, it is my conclusion that the specific utility of close, deep listening in the guided context of a record or piece designed to be listened to is a more productive use of the form, and should be regarded as such. With the advancement of Artificial Intelligence; mimicry, authenticity, illusion, truth and the abstract world collide for the individual in a way that is both Weird, at times Horrifying and/or Incomprehensible. We need to be deeply careful about what we are listening to. We need to use the common ground which Music provides to build a kind of unshakeable truth which grounds any Well-Being-oriented process in a solid, shared exploration of what it means to be, in and of itself.

            What we listen to are the thought-based patterns we reinforce. These come to construct our inner minds and how we form our response to the outside world.

Any beneficial affect must pass through the human taste; or we risk giving up our final agency to yet more algorithms and computational processes outside of control.

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